Enza under attack over treatment of growers

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON

Four complaints to the Apple and Pear Board are testing the industry's new regulatory structure as attacks mount on former monopoly marketer, Enza.

Board chairman John Isles said a big grower had also lodged a formal complaint about Enza's decision to renege on a $25 million capital distribution to its 1999 suppliers.

On Tuesday, a group of Otago growers said they had complained about the issue, alleging Enza was discriminating between groups of growers by paying the funds to this year's suppliers as a $1.20 per tray bonus.

Mr Isles said the board, an independent body set up last year under legislation which separated marketing and regulatory functions, had also received two further complaints.

One related to payments for last year's crop, the other concerned actions by Enza.

Mr Isles said if the board determined that part or all of the capital distribution issue was within its scope to consider it would advise the complainants and Enza early next week. If it could act, the matter would be treated urgently because of the state of the industry and a draft opinion could be delivered in up to three weeks, he said.

The board appoints the export permits committee, whose decisions have come under attack by both Enza and independent exporters.

"We think both sides have overstated the issues," Mr Isles said.

The board was concerned only with the integrity of the process and it believed the committee was being independent, he said.

Meanwhile, corporate apple grower Grocorp said Enza executive chairman John McCliskie's comments to the Business Herald that Enza could not satisfy British supermarkets' demand for small apples reinforced the case for independent exporting.

In response, Mr McCliskie said growing conditions in the last two years - one poor, one good - meant Enza could not supply the small fruit the supermarkets required.

Grocorp chairman Grant Sinclair said Mr McCliskie presented his operation as being at the mercy of the weather and unable to influence the volumes of small apples.

"This does not have to be the case. By providing the right price signals to growers and contracting, Enza can ensure the apple crop better meets the needs of its customers offshore," he said.

"The failure to do this in recent years has resulted in some of its customers being disappointed."

Mr Sinclair said growers needed a more direct relationship with overseas markets and Enza should be focussing on achieving this.

Independent Pipfruit Growers spokesman Van Howard also rejected Mr McCliskie's claims.

"It's not Mother Nature. We can grow whatever the market wants but Enza has never paid us for small fruit," he said.

For the fifth time running, US-based World Apple Review has ranked New Zealand as the most competitive apple producing nation of 27 countries.

Mr Howard said Enza might be getting premiums of 40 per cent on fruit but it was not being reflected back to growers.

"They may be the world's top marketers but we're all going broke."